


Sun Stand Still

by samchandler1986



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Mild Smut, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-08
Updated: 2015-12-08
Packaged: 2018-05-05 15:59:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5381294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samchandler1986/pseuds/samchandler1986
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enough time will bring down any wall, tear apart any barrier. But time also heals.<br/>[A sequel to World Enough and Time].</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sun Stand Still

He opens his eyes; his expression makes her smile. A second of dim awareness before the Doctor fully returns. It’s like watching a monitor blink into life; like a slow explosion.

“Hello,” she says.

A quick look around; left, right, taking in the understated elegance of her bedroom. “How long was I gone?” he asks. Not asleep, but _gone_. She feels much the same, these days. Sleep is a waste. But still, for him, an occasional need.

“About forty-five minutes.”

“Oh. Ok.” He grins wickedly, and she feels the trill of something like adrenalin despite her frozen veins. “Shall we continue?”

She sits up further, lets the cover slide, amused at the flicker in his attention the exposure causes. “How long d’you think we’ve been going?”

“Seventy-two hours, fifty-eight minutes and six seconds.” He considers this statement for a moment. “Minus the forty-three minutes and eight seconds I was asleep.”

She shakes her head. “Time Lords.”

“I know, we’re annoying.” She lets him pull her close again, gentle and tender, then shrieks in surprise as he flips them over. Her unresisting arms are now pinned against the pillow; his smile a sin. “But let’s be honest,” he continues, lips dipping to her throat, “there are some advantages too.”

* * *

“We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

It is later. Closer to the inevitable goodbye.

 “Lots of times-”

“Shut up.” A kiss in the dark. “I meant before this.”

She draws back slightly, to better see his expression. “I have,” she says softly, after a time. “I think for you: no. This is the first time you’ve found me.”

Eyelashes flutter; a blink; two. Processing. Her fingers move across his back, unthinking, waiting for him to return. “Good,” he says eventually. The corner of his mouth quirks again. “Is it always like this?”

A chuckle bubbles up, like a relic from the distant past. He makes her feel young and foolish again, every time. “Always. Although sometimes we do go outside. Save planets. You know, in between.”

“I look forward to it,” he says, and she can see the truth in his expression.

“You should.”

A sigh. “Clara-”

“No. Shut up. Don’t say it.”

“Clara.” The way he says her name makes it belong to her again. There’s not many people left in the Universe that can do that. Me, perhaps, wherever she’s adventuring at the moment. And always him.

It is her turn to sigh. “Go on, then. If you have to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Mm-hm. For what? There’s nothing you need to apologise fo-”

“I’m sorry that I don’t remember.”

There it is, that catch in her chest. She’s often wondered; is it memory? Does her brain remember the feeling of rushing blood and hormones and simulate the response? Or were they never biological things in the first place? That rush of lust, the sickness of fear. The weight of sadness.

“I know.”

She wishes he’d just be quiet, let it be. Knows nonetheless in her stopped heart: there are some things that must be said. Without the words what has passed between them is nothing more than a giddy fuck. He’s many things to her, the Doctor, but never that.

Or at least, never _just_ that.

“I can feel it,” he continues, voice tight, “under the surface of my skin. When we touch…” He gasps slightly as she slides both hands up, across his chest, tracing every rib. Swallows hard. “I can feel the edges of something great and terrible. I can taste it when we kiss. But I can’t _remember_.”  

He’s apologising, she realises, in case this means more to her than it does to him. “It’s ok,” she says, marvelling at the tears that still prick her eyes. She wonders, how many centuries still to go? _How many seconds in eternity?_ “Because you will.”

It’s his turn to draw back, pressing his head into her pillows to better see her face. “What?”

“It’s a neuro-block, Doctor. Not a wipe. Not a reset.”

“But if I remember…” He frowns, not sure what the consequences will be, clearly still aware they will be catastrophic.

“Time, Doctor. Enough time will bring down any wall, tear apart any barrier. But time also _heals_. Time offers perspective. One day, you’re going to have travelled far enough and lived and loved and lost enough to remember me. Remember us. One day you’re going to remember what I said in the Cloisters. And on the day you _do_ , well, we’ve made a promise.”

“We have?”

“Yes. You and Me and, well… me as well. Clara-me. The three of us. When you can remember, it’s time to go home.”

She can feel his pulse jump through her chest, so close are they entwined. Not for the first time it strikes her as ironic, that double-time beat. Her heart is still, but that’s ok, because _he’s_ carrying a spare. Beat after beat, counting down to zero. And when he gets there, in that time between one double heartbeat and his last, _that’s_ when she’s going back to face the bloody bird.

Together. One last time.

“Clara,” he breathes, his own eyes wet. “I can see why I miss you.”

* * *

They eat breakfast in the diner front of her TARDIS.

“Thank you,” he says, and she knows he doesn’t mean just for the scrambled eggs and bacon.

“It was my pleasure." She coughs. “Several times.”

His grin can only be described as devilish. “Yes, well. You’ll have to see if I can beat my record next time.”

“Oh,” she replies, her own wicked smile cracking, “believe me. You do.”

He is silent, smug for a few seconds. Then, inevitably, the next thought flutters into his consciousness and escapes out of his mouth. She understands that, these days. When almost everyone else is so fleeting, it’s silly not to share. Curiosity is too precious a thing to waste.

“Do they arrange it; do you think?”

“Do who?”

“The TARDISes. I wasn’t planning on landing in Athens. I asked mine to take me to Neptune, a billion years from now.”

She considers the proposition. “Yes,” she says, eventually. “You know, I think they might.” He always appears when she’s sad, when she’s alone; when she might consider breaking the rules she can never forget. The unspooling centuries take almost everything else, but not those.

_Run like hell. Laugh always. Never cruel or cowardly. And if you are, make amends._

_And no pears_.

She always feels it’s a shame, that last part. She used to like pears.  

He shrugs on his velvet coat as she loads their plates into the dishwasher. They never seem to require _unloading_ , appearing pristine under the diner counter. One of the many perks of TARDIS life, she assumes.

“You’re looking for a new companion,” he says shrewdly, as he pulls the jacket straight.

She doesn’t ask how he knows. “Yes.”

He runs his tongue over his teeth. “You might want to take a trip to Fingus Colony, seventy-second century, third oscillation. A Thursday afternoon, sometime in summer.”

“Oh?”

“I owe someone there a favour. And one Doctor is as good as any other.”

She walks him to her door, one last, lingering kiss on the threshold. “Goodbye, Clara,” he says, soft and sad. He won’t remember, when he turns his back, any of this at all. Not until the next time.

She smiles, seeing the new purpose, new adventures, new _future_ unfolding out in front of both of them.

“I’ll be seeing you,” she says.  


End file.
